


One Christmas in Vacherie - #6 in Series

by KayCee1951



Series: Magnificent Obsession Series [6]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Story complete, While the kids are in space, but some of it is, it's not all about their kids, mothers have lives of their own
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:55:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25309345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KayCee1951/pseuds/KayCee1951
Summary: The Vulcan ambassador's wife calling at the Chapel family home on what had the earmark of being an official visit did not bode well. (Multiple time frames)Next in Series: The Sacred Q'e of Q'a'ta'Orbin
Relationships: Amanda Grayson/Sarek, Christine Chapel/Spock
Series: Magnificent Obsession Series [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832005
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	1. Vacherie, Louisiana - Earth Date 2272

**Chapter One:**

_Serendipity:_

_(n)_ the effect by which one accidentally stumbles upon something truly wonderful, especially while looking for something entirely unrelated.

_(www.mybeautifulwords.com)_

**_Friday, March 29, 2272_ **

**_Earth/Vacherie, Louisiana_ **

It was a Tulane graduate student who met two guests at the front gate. “Welcome to Ducheaux House. My name is Honore Villemont. I’ll be your docent for a tour of the manor house.”  
  
The tall woman with short brown hair, dressed in a colorful tunic top and light teal calf-length leggings, extended her hand and declared, “I’m Saranda Hammond, but I prefer Sara, and this,” she indicated her companion, “is my cousin, Amanda. It was our understanding we would be meeting with a descendant of the Ducheaux family.”

Saranda Hammond was a free spirit even by 23rd-century standards. She had little use for stuffy traditions, rituals steeped in antiquity, and stodgy convention, regardless of any high ideals they might represent. When interacting with her cousin, Amanda Grayson, she complied only with those Vulcan protocols for which she could find no viable way of circumventing. Thus the plans were made to separate her cousin from San Francisco, and the Vulcan Embassy, for three days all to themselves.

Sarek, although he would not have admitted to understanding it, recognized his wife’s need for respite from all that went with being the Human wife of a Vulcan and had become accustomed to the ritual. It was an unspoken agreement to which he had acceded long ago; the Vulcan equivalent of ‘happy wife, happy life,’ however, he was not likely to acknowledge an understanding of that either. Sara made all the arrangements and supplied the Vulcan embassy with the particulars of their getaway. Sarek’s acceding did not mean the itinerary would not be vetted by his staff. The private tour of Ducheaux House had been arranged through a tenured linguistics professor at Tulane, for Saranda Hammond and companion for March 29. ~~~~

“Yes, Lauren Ducheaux. She is expecting you in one hour at the residence. Dr. DeVilliers related only a few details about your visit. I understand you’re in the area to talk to families with French Creole histories?”

Amanda admonished Sara with a look and offered her hand to him. “Yes, we are. And, thank you for making the time for us today? I apologize for the short notice.”

“Please, think nothing of it.”

Honore walked the two women up the 800 ft path to the front entrance manor house. Made of brick pavers, and laid in a diagonal herringbone pattern, the walkway was lined with centuries-old live oaks draped with Spanish moss on the upper branches. The lower branches, covered with fresh shawls of Resurrection fern, drooped gracefully to the ground with age.

He led Sara and Amanda into the foyer explaining the history of the house as they progressed up the stairs to the landing. “Construction on the main manor house began in 1787 and was completed in 1790. The east and west wings were added in the mid-eighteen hundreds.”

He pointed to the east wing. “The east wing burned to the ground in 1914 and was reconstructed ten years later.” The second floor boasted a parlor and veranda overlooking the rear garden complex. “The Ducheaux family salvaged the property in 2056 and has either owned or been responsible for it through eight generations.”

By the time Honore delivered his charges to her, Lauren had set up afternoon tea in the gazebo. The long brick path running through it connected the manor house to the residence conservatory. The gazebo, a white latticed structure, was topped with a cupola style roof and was situated in the midst of the low hedgerow maze of herb gardens. A light breeze brought hints of rosemary and lavender with it.

Lauren met her guests, as she usually did for private tours, introducing herself by her maiden name. She rarely used her husband’s name when representing the house and it appeared nowhere in the published material about the property. Her husband was a very private man. A botanical engineer and historian, he preferred the administrative, and virtually anonymous, side of the responsibility he and Lauren had accepted long ago, before their daughter was born. His primary passion was the agri-lab located on the outer edge of the twenty-eight-acre plot of Ducheaux House et al. The lab, in conjunction with other laboratories in the Federation, was contributing to groundbreaking work in terraforming.

Tea in the gazebo was accompanied by cucumber sandwiches, beignets and bread pudding with Bourbon sauce. Sara voiced her approval of the bone china tea service; an eclectic mixture of antique Spode and Copeland design in a complementary color scheme.

“I’m sure Honore told you this is one of the few historic plantations that survived the last global war,” Lauren said, taking a sip of tea.

“So much was lost,” Amanda sighed.

“The creole dialect among them,” Lauren said, lamenting the loss of personal history. “Even before the war, it was an endangered language. Less than ten thousand spoke it, mostly in this region. My family can trace its roots back to native America, Africa, and France. A few of my ancestors were slaves in this area. Not on this plantation, but on others that did not survive the war. Or its collateral damage.”

“Do you speak the language?” Sara asked.

“ _Apre yon mòd_. I can interpret a little better than speak it. Creole French is more an amalgam dialect passed on orally. It evolved as a mixture of African languages with French, English, and Spanish and sometimes varied by region. There are no gendered nouns, as there are in French and no strict adherence to grammar of either French or English. If you would like to follow me to the conservatory, I have a decent library of old volumes on the subject.”

“That would be lovely, but would you mind very much if we explore your gardens first?” Amanda asked. “They look so inviting.”

The extended gardens beyond beckoned with statues from Greek mythology standing watch on each side of the trailhead.

“Of course. I need little encouragement to show them off. The azaleas are just coming into bloom and the knock-out roses are spectacular this year.”

“Amanda is also quite the gardener,” Sara said. “What she’s able to grow in her garden is nothing short of a miracle considering.”

“Horticulture is only a hobby of mine,” Lauren said, slightly perplexed by the private exchange of looks between the two women, Sara with a mischievous gleam in her eye and Amanda with quiet reproach in hers. “And, although I wish I could take credit, maintenance is a daunting task. The university and reclamation council deserves the lion’s share of the credit.” 

The elaborately planned gardens were splendiferous with the color of salmon, pink, white, and yellow. As they walked, banana spiders guarded their webs in the hedgerows of boxwood and sasanqua along the meandering paths.

“The gardens were revitalized in the late 21st-century, along with the construction of the caretaker residence, as part of a preservation project,” Lauren explained. When they passed the path to the Mississippi levee, Lauren commented that her daughter, a bit of a headstrong wild child, used to play there when she was very young. 

Finally reaching the conservatory, Lauren set about pulling hardbound books from the shelves of the bookcase. Most were about Creole cuisine offering tidbits of context. A few related Creole and Cajun folktales or were compendiums of oral traditions. She also pulled out two scholarly tomes on the history of the language itself, one of which had not yet been transferred to a global library format.

“If you like,” she offered, “I can have this scanned so you can access it. I’ve been meaning to do it for a while but there’s not a great deal of interest in what is, for all intent and purposes, a dead language.”

Lauren handed Amanda the book and continued rummaging in the bookcase. With a hint of frustration in her voice and reaching into the depths of the second shelf, she said mostly to herself, “I know it was here.”

Sara rose and asked if she could assist. “Are you looking for something in particular?”

“Yes. A small book of Creole proverbs, very thin, very old.”

Honore entered with more refreshments for them and said, “Lauren, I’m sorry to interrupt. Doctor Chapel asked if you would call him at the lab.” 

When Lauren excused herself, she did not notice Amanda’s expression had changed. 

“What is it, Amanda?” Sara asked. Her cousin, now surveying the room, looked disconcerted.

Amanda looked around to find something familial and wondered how she had missed the photo cube on the piano. Perhaps because it was running through family history and the image kept changing. Before the visit, she had not required any personal knowledge about the family who lived there.

She drew closer to the cube and when an image popped up of the female child progressed to the adult, she stopped the image from changing.

Sara took a look and with an approving grin, remarked, “Must be the wild child.”

“I thought Lauren’s clear blue eyes seemed familiar,” Amanda said, and still watching intently restarted the cube’s progression of images.

“You know the daughter?”

“Her name is Christine,” Amanda answered and then, absorbed in her own thoughts, muttered, “For all the sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest of these…”

“Amanda, I’m so sorry,” Sara gasped, realizing only now when the cube revealed the daughter in uniform, who the woman in the photo must be. She had wanted to pull her cousin away from reminders of Spock’s unfathomable choices. “I had no idea she was the one…or that her parents lived here.”

“How could you have known? I told you only that she is in love with my son…for all the good it will do either of us now.”

Neither Amanda nor Sara noticed Lauren had returned to the conservatory.

~~~~~*~~~~~

Lauren stood in the doorway, her arms crossed, “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” 

She was equal parts curious and bemused. Having learned how to skillfully her daughter could redirect the conversation from subjects she did not want to discuss, Christine had kept a great many things close to the vest since her return from deep space. Rather than let it cause friction between them, Lauren had resolved to turn a blind eye to her daughter’s newly acquired introspection in exchange for the simple enjoyment of having her back on Earth.

Sara abhorred the vacuum of uneasy silence and she gave all indications she intended to fill it.

“Perhaps,” Amanda said, as she preempted Sara and moved closer to be face-to-face with Lauren, “I should formally introduce myself. My name is Amanda Grayson. Wife to Sarek, of Vulcan. Mother of Spock.”

Lauren’s arms fell loosely by her side. _Well, that definitely was not what she had expected_.

Hearing her daughter was in love with someone whom she rarely mentioned was not so much a revelation as an annoyance. Learning Christine was in love with a Vulcan… _half-Vulcan_ _…Whatever. How does that happen?_ _Aren’t Vulcans cold and emotionless – incapable of love? Had her daughter entered into yet another disastrous relationship?_

Since Christine had made what Lauren considered an ill-advised decision to abandon a promising career in research to sign aboard a starship and search for the phantom Roger Korby, she had considered herself nearly unflappable.

“I beg your pardon?” she managed, an awestruck weakness in her voice.

“Oh, my dear,” Amanda said, realizing too late Lauren obviously did not know and that she had done something unforgivable. “I am so very sorry.”

~~~~~*~~~~~

Lauren had never believed in fate, or pre-destiny, or karma. Those were things her great-great-grandmother had believed in. She had dismissed them as a holdover from ancient times. Though she venerated the past, she repudiated all forms of spiritualism as voodoo, also part of her personal family history. 

The afternoon with Amanda and Sara made her reevaluate many things.

Though it was the equivalent of having a concussion grenade dropped at her feet, Amanda had gently provided the context which allowed her to process it all with a smidgeon of her dignity still intact. The sad acceptance on Amanda’s face when she related the nature of her son’s choice to purge all emotion and follow some isolated, monastic lifestyle put a new slant on her own misgivings about her daughter’s choices.

Lauren could still relate to Christine on a mother-daughter level. She intended to maintain that level, no matter what, or how much, she had to suck it up.


	2. Vacherie, Louisiana - Earth Date 2290

**Chapter Two:**

**_Monday, December 22, 2290_ **

**_Earth/Vacherie, Louisiana_ **

Patterson returned to the caretaker residence of Ducheaux House late in the evening. He had developed the habit of walking the distance from the agricultural laboratory to the manor house through the section of the property that acknowledged one of the darkest eras of human history. 

It reminded him that there was not a single planet or sentient species within, or outside, the Federation that was without sins of the past. The important thing was to rise above and beyond them, and most importantly, to never repeat them. It was this belief that gave Patterson solace not only to accept but support his daughter’s decision to be on the farthest edge of Federation space.

As he passed through the gardens surrounding their residence he had expected to find his wife burning the midnight oil in her office, working on plans for the Christmas Eve bonfire. The event was scheduled in two days and would kick off festivities surrounding the celebration of the five hundredth anniversary of the completion of the main house. Instead, he found her playing the piano in the conservatory.

Lauren, who was a Ducheaux, and Patterson had both come to realize they would likely be the last of the family line to accept that responsibility. Their daughter had followed another path that precluded any involvement in that tradition.

When Patterson walked into the conservatory, Lauren was in the middle of Debussy’s Clair de Lune. He sat in the chair by the bookcases to listen. Less than half a bottle of red wine sat next to the chair along with an empty Bordeaux glass. He poured a few ounces of the red liquid into the glass, picked up the bottle, and transferred himself to the piano bench beside his wife.

When Lauren finished the sonata, she turned to him with the kind of smile she employed when there was something she needed to say but was unsure how to begin.

“So what’s the occasion?” he asked, holding up the bottle and putting it on the music shelf of the baby grand. 

“I had a visitor this afternoon.”

“Must have been a special visitor,” he said, cautiously taking a sip. “Not every day you break out the Chateau La Barre.”

“Amanda Grayson.”

“I thought the three of you liked to meet at obscure locations like Slapout, Nowhere, and Two Egg,” he snickered. 

Some of the places his wife met Amanda and Sara over the past eighteen years were not only obscure, but they were also utterly off the map. Aside from the fact that Amanda Grayson was the wife of the Vulcan Ambassador and the three contrived ways to meet out of the public eye, he had always chalked up the particular choices of meeting places to Sara’s Bohemian proclivities.

Lauren couldn’t help smiling. He was right of course. 

“Sara was not with her this afternoon,” she said. “But she wasn’t alone. An attaché from the Embassy was with her.”

Patterson pondered the ramifications while he took another sip of wine. The Vulcan ambassador’s wife calling at their home on what had the earmark of being an official visit did not bode well.

~~~~~*~~~~~

Christmastime in the region of southern Louisiana, which had come to be generally referred to as New Orleans, had changed little in the past three or four hundred years; in spite of sophisticated technology, space travel, global war, ravaging hurricane and whale probe. What are we without our history and traditions? Every planet and every species had them. Every planet and every species kept them alive. The choice was either to embrace them or erase them altogether; the latter had proven time and again to be disastrous.

At Ducheaux House, the wrought iron banisters between the columns of the first and second floors were festooned with strands of local red cedar mixed with the glossy leaves of the camellia sasanqua. The exterior decorations were completed by a tree on the widow’s walk, another of Christine Chapel’s favorite childhood haunts. Beyond the maze of hedgerows, the gardens looked as if pink snow had fallen under the sasanquas. Ducheaux House seemed a place outside of time and far from the turmoil on a planet thousands of light-years away.

It was into this tranquil, timeless setting that an aircar delivered the wife of the Vulcan ambassador at 10:30 a.m.

When Lauren appeared on the porch of the manor house, Amanda introduced her personal attaché, T’Vin. Lauren flawlessly executed a Vulcan greeting which T’Vin returned in kind. To anyone else, T’Vin would have appeared the epitomic Vulcan. Though they had never met, Lauren was familiar with this particular Vulcan. Amanda had spoken of her affectionately many times over the past eighteen years.

“Would you mind terribly if we made our way to your residence through the main house?” Amanda asked. “I have wanted to see the foyer at Christmastime.”

“I would be disappointed if you didn’t,” Lauren said, her smile a little stiffer than she intended. T’Vin made her uneasy, not because she was Vulcan but because she was there.

Inside the eleven-foot high foyer, crowned at the top with twelve-inch stacked molding, a hand-carved Christmas crèche had been assembled in front of two floor-to-ceiling mirrors that were draped with the same natural greenery as the exterior. The statuary was surrounded by pots of evergreen olive and swamp bay. 

“The crèche is on loan from the New Orleans Museum of Antiquities,” Lauren said. “We’re very fortunate to be able to display it this year, at least through Christmas Day. It will go back to the museum after that.”

Throughout the house, the windows and fireplaces were draped with greenery and with a candle on every windowsill. Amanda silently wished she could have enjoyed it under different circumstances. She was amused at the quizzical look on Lauren’s face when T’Vin picked up _“Cajun Night Before Christmas ®”_ from a corner table and began to peruse the pages. 

When T’Vin stopped to study a historical marker about the origin of the elaborately carved mantelpiece in the dining room, Lauren took the opportunity to quietly ask Amanda, “Vous n'êtes pas venu ici juste pour voir la maison à Noel, n'est-ce pas?” (1)

“Perhaps it is time we moved on to your residence where we can talk,” Amanda answered, with a validating sigh. “By the way, Vulcans have excellent hearing and T’Vin understands French.”

~~~~~*~~~~~

When they arrived at the residence, Lauren asked her guests to have a seat in the large open-plan family room while she made tea. In spite of its two hundred years, the interior of the caretaker residence exhibited a contemporary design with both utilitarian and comfortable furnishings. When she returned with the teapot and three cups, T’Vin had disappeared.

Reading the question on Lauren’s face, Amanda said, “We thought it prudent for her to take a walk in the gardens while we talked.”

“I hope I didn’t cause any offense.”

“Offense is a Human emotion,” Amanda said, smiling. “She has been with our family since Spock was five and is privy to many things in our household. I explained to her before we arrived that you would feel more comfortable if it was just the two of us.”

Lauren nodded a quiet ‘thank you’ and decided she would keep her concerns about T’Vin’s even being there at all to herself for the moment.

Amanda took a sip of tea and asked, “What has Christine told you about the mission on Q’a’ta’Orbin?”

“Only what you and I have discussed before.”

“I meant, what has she told you in the past few months, since the last time you and I communicated?”

“Very little. Amanda, you and I have been through so much together and we have both come within a hair’s breadth of losing our children. Just tell me.”

“Please, bear with me. It is not an easy thing to explain.”

Lauren let out a short breath and tried not to make it sound exasperated. “Her communiques have been fewer over the past three months and those have been, for lack of a better word, uninspired.” She suspected that things on Q’a’ta’Orbin were not going well.

“Then, she has not told you that she has been replaced as director of the mission?”

“No.” Lauren, knitting her brow, was momentarily stunned by the revelation. She got up and pulled a bottle of wine from the cabinet. “When did this happen?”

“A month ago. She had no warning. Her replacement, a Doctor Seren, arrived with the supply ship and the official communique. But we believe it was inevitable.”

“Why inevitable? And how is it that you know?”

“Through Sarek.”

Lauren was silent, weighing the implications. After all that had happened in the past six years, she was aware that her daughter had developed a rapport with the Vulcan Ambassador, although, she couldn’t really account for why. She was also aware that Christine had received a rare opportunity to work with a Vulcan Healer for a year, but had declined it in favor of staying on the frontier.

“Three months ago,” Amanda began, “Christine reached out to Sarek regarding increasing deficits in supply shipments. I believe she was also concerned about unreasonable restrictions to the CERI team’s interaction with the Torbin and the gradual reassignment of personnel for reasons she could not reconcile. When the supply ship that brought her replacement left Q’a’ta’Orbin, a month ago, it took half the remaining CERI personnel with it.”

“We received a communique from her only two weeks ago – there was no mention of any of that.”

“I thought not. That would have been sent before she was ordered by Starfleet to step aside,” Amanda said. “At first, she appealed to the Inspector General’s office. When it became apparent that she would not be getting anywhere with the IG office, she contacted Admiral Cartwright. When that failed to yield any results, she contacted Sarek.”

Lauren poured wine into her teacup and offered some to Amanda.

“No, thank you. Lauren,” Amanda said, taking her hand, “there are some things I have not told you.”

“What else could there to tell?” Lauren’s heart was beating rapidly. Every instinct told her she should brace herself.

Amanda thought, _“Where to begin_?”

“About your daughter’s _personal_ relationship with my son.”

Lauren and Amanda had only occasionally spoken of their children. Amanda’s admission, that if she were to choose a wife for her son it would be Christine, was diametrically opposed to her own hopes that it was an impossibility. She respected Amanda. She respected the Vulcans. And she respected Sarek if only because Amanda loved him so. She had even come to understand how Christine would be attracted to Spock. But she would not want that life for her daughter, even now, even after all that she had learned and all the petty prejudices, borne of misinformation, she had overcome. 

“As far as I know, there isn’t one, at least beyond mutual respect.” Lauren was still defiantly holding on to her hope that it was not possible. _How had a discussion about whatever was transpiring on Q’a’ta’Orbin suddenly, and inexplicably, segued to a discussion of a personal relationship between their children?_

“I know this is not what you wanted to hear,” Amanda continued, “but I do not believe that professional respect or even friendship is the full extent of their relationship.”

Lauren, shaking her head, gave her friend a smile signaling surrender and a deep sigh. “I knew she was still in love with him. I think I even knew there was more. Christine came home for the last visit before returning to duty on the Bradley.” Lauren stopped for a moment, shook her head slowly, and organized her thoughts. “You remember those hideous gargoyle bookends that Sara thought were wonderful?”

“Yes, you said they belonged to Patterson’s mother,” Amanda answered.

“For some reason, Christine asked for them. She wanted to take them with her. While we were packaging them up in the conservatory, I took advantage of her vulnerability to ask about her feelings for Spock. I suppose I convinced myself that I wanted to understand and help her through the pain, but I’m ashamed to admit that I think I really just wanted to know.”

She poured herself another teacup of wine and with a far off look in her eyes as if trying to capture a moment in time. “I don’t remember exactly how I said it, but I commented on how difficult it must be for her...to love someone who can never return it. I was astonished that she answered. She said, _"'loving him is the easiest thing I have ever done, or ever will do…having to explain it, or being asked to defend it, is what makes it difficult."'_ I resolved never to ask her anything about Spock again.”

“And I have long suspected,” Amanda said, “that Spock’s interest in Christine is more than just professional respect. I never mentioned it to you because they were just that, suspicions that might have been borne of my own hopes, especially after he gave up his quest for Kolinahr. Yes, it goes that far back. I was only certain of it when I saw them both at an official function a few weeks before…before the training cruise.”

Lauren put her hand on Amanda’s.

“They had gotten into a debate over some philosophical question. I don’t even remember what it was about. I was more intent on their interaction than the subject matter. Body language. Eye contact. That they had become more than colleagues, more than friends would have been unmistakable for anyone paying attention. Perhaps I should not have, but I was so caught up in the possibilities that I took the chance to confront him about it. Of course, he would not confirm it. But he did not deny it either. When I chastised him for guarding his privacy too closely, he told me that I _‘was assuming the privacy in need of protection was his._ ’”

Lauren had never considered that her daughter’s affections for the half Vulcan son of her friend might actually be, or at least had been, reciprocated. _How could she have been so blind to the extent of her daughter's loss?_ Thoughts of all she had learned about Vulcans from Amanda coalesced to form an image she simply had not wanted to see. 

“Forgive me, Amanda, but what does one thing have to do with the other?”

“There are forces working against the Torbin. It is unclear why or to what end. The fight she is waging and will continue to wage is about to become very public. I believe that it is why she has asked Sarek to cease his efforts to investigate or intervene. She begged him to stand down. When he refused, on principle, she contacted me in hopes I could persuade Sarek he would only be giving her adversaries more ammunition if he continued.”

“And you believe it is because there is a relationship…”

“Was,” Amanda said, sadly. “I’m afraid that what happened to my son also ended whatever they may have had together. I can’t even tell you why or how I know. I just do. I believe she is afraid that any hint of that would compromise Sarek’s ability to help the Torbin cause. He reluctantly agreed. Christine is very determined and will do what she has to do. Since Christine is in no position to do so, Sarek and I thought you should at least have some warning.”

~~~~~*~~~~~

When Lauren finished relating the story to Patterson, she was weary from the effort. It seemed more devastating in the retelling.

“Amanda apologized profusely for having to interfere with our holiday, but she and Sarek leave for a conference on Rigel 5 tomorrow and she didn’t want to put anything in a communication.”

“Is she afraid their communications, or ours, are being monitored?”

“I asked her that. She would only say there are possibilities that must be considered.”

“And the Vulcan attache?”

“T’Vin will be remaining at the Embassy on Earth. Amanda wanted me to meet her. She said T’Vin could be trusted and that if we needed to communicate with her, it should be through T’Vin.”

“Then I suppose the only thing left to do is wait for the other shoe to drop,” Patterson said, as he poured the last of the Chateau La Barre into their empty glasses. Holding his up to meet Lauren’s, he added, “To our daughter and her magnificent obsessions.”

* * *

**Epilogue:**

**_Wednesday, December 24, 2290_ **

**_Earth, South Louisiana - on the Mississippi River levee_**

For centuries, parents have sent their children into the unknown; sailors went down to the sea in ships, pioneers into the west, explorers into the darkness and dangers of space…

There was never a time when it became easy.

Christmas Eve bonfires on the levee were traditionally intended to light the way for Papa Noel. For Lauren and Patterson Chapel, watching flames reaching up for the stars, the towering inferno represented a beacon to light the way for their daughter to come home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Ducheaux house is an amalgamation of Destrehan Plantation (French Creole colonial architecture with Greek Revival elements and completed in 1790 – the oldest in Louisiana), Oak Alley Plantation (Greek Revival style located in Vacherie, LA) and Rosedown Plantation (Federal/Greek Revival style located in St. Francisville, LA) and Laura Plantation (French Creole style – located in Vacherie, LA, and part of the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail) and Houmas House (located in Darrow, LA.
> 
> (1) Translation: “You didn’t come here just to see the house at Christmastime, did you?”
> 
> A/N: In the Christian tradition, a nativity scene (also known as a manger scene, crib, crèche (/krɛʃ/or /kreɪʃ/, or in Italian presepio or presepe) is the special exhibition, particularly during the Christmas season, of art objects representing the birth of Jesus. By the late 18th century, crèche (which we borrowed from French and now sometimes spelled without the accent mark) had displaced those older forms, and the word had lost its former "manger" meaning, coming to refer instead to a representation of the Nativity scene itself .– Nativity scene – Wikipedia.
> 
> The Cajun Night Before Christmas® has been a part of Louisiana’s holiday traditions since it was first published. Now, more than forty-five years later, a new generation is discovering the charm of Gaston® the Green-Nosed Alligator. First conceived by J.B. Kling, Jr. writing as ‘Trosclair’, the CLIO award-winning sales jingle for the Bergeron Plymouth Company in New Orleans was based on the Clement Moore poem. The exclusive rights were purchased by Pelican Publishing Company and the illustrations of then-fledgling artist James Rice brought the story to life. Amazon.com

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Horace Walpole coined the word serendipity in a letter to another Horace—Mann—dated January 28, 1754. The occasion was pretty unremarkable—it was a happy accident, after all—and almost archetypally British: Walpole had used a talisman to discover a link between two families by investigating their coats of arms in an old book. At least Walpole was aware of the dullness of his eureka moment: “I have nothing better to tell you,” he writes, before launching into the fascinating etymology of his new word. It would take nearly two centuries for the adjective form, serendipitous, to come on the scene—its first recorded usage was in 1943. —D. P. (The Paris Review Jan 28, 2016)
> 
> A/N: “For all the sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest of these…” from Maud Muller, a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)- Full quote: “For all the sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest of these…It Might have been!”


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